Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos

By: Nash Jenkins

Narrated by: Will Damron

“[A] striking debut. . . funny, heartbreaking, and real.”–SAM LANSKY, author of Broken People

Prep meets The Secret History in this searing debut novel about a tragic scandal at an American prep school, told in the form of a literary investigation through a distinctly millennial lens

When Foster Dade arrives at Kennedy, an elite boarding school in New Jersey, the year is 2008. Barack Obama begins his first term as president; Vampire Weekend and Passion Pit bump from the newly debuted iPhone; teenagers share confidences and rumors over BlackBerry Messenger and iChat; and the internet as we know it is slowly emerging from its cocoon. So, too, is Foster emerging—a transfer student and anxious young man, Foster is stumbling through adolescence in the wake of his parents’ scandalous divorce. But Foster soon finds himself in the company of Annabeth Whittaker and Jack Albright, the twin centers of Kennedy’s social gravity, who take him under their wing to navigate the cliques and politics of the carelessly entitled.

Eighteen months later, Foster will be expelled, following a tragic scandal that leaves Kennedy and its students irreparably changed. When our nameless narrator inherits Foster’s old dorm room, he begins an epic yearslong investigation into what exactly happened. Through interviews with former classmates, Foster’s blog posts, playlists, and text archives, and the narrator’s own obsessive imagination, a story unfurls—Foster’s, yes, but also one that asks us who owns our personal narratives, and how we shape ourselves to be the heroes or villains of our own stories.

Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos is about privilege and power, the pitfalls of masculinity and its expectations, and, most distinctly, how we create the mythologies that give meaning to our lives. With his debut novel, Nash Jenkins brilliantly captures the emotional intensities of adolescence in the dizzying early years of the twenty-first century.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of Foster Dade's iTunes Playlists

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Nash Jenkins (P)2023 Random House Audio

Beautifully written

It was very beautifully written and introspective at points. It’s writing style draws you in completely and the reader is as immersed in the settings as Foster is. As noted in the summary, it is like a modern successor of The Secret History, though it’s younger characters create more of a sense of immaturity & naivety in their actions. Good read.

Great depiction of boarding school

A great coming of age novel that depicts the niche culture of boarding schools quite well

Fully Enjoyed it

A beautifully intelligent observation on the realities of losing your virginity in the age of BBM. Heartbreaking, funny, and complete

Narration Makes It

Loved this book and am astonished at how well all the identities were narrated. Looked forward to hearing it each time I got in the car. Highly recommend.

Moving story, outstanding Audible narration

Story was compelling, great description of boarding school life. The conceit of the investigative younger student telling the story didn’t entirely work.

Early John Green meets Donna Tart as told by Nick Carraway

As a young millennial who currently teaches at a boarding school, I was primed to like this book if only for the cultural touchstones that exist for me on several levels. The iTunes playlists, slang, fashion, and early internet jokes were nostalgic in all the right ways. And while the drug use got a little redundant (think: The Goldfinch) and the sex scenes were a little graphic, the story was compelling (if sometimes digressive) and did manage kept me listening all the way through. Some of the prose is a little overwrought (in a Perks of Being a Wallflower or Bel Canto kind of way), but still had many moments of beauty. Will Damron is wonderful, (dispite a few conspicuous mispronunciations) and handled the Facebook message/blog post reading portions of the text well. Overall, it's a good early summer or late fall pre-bedtime listen. Devour this while deep cleaning your house all day and and get swept away into the hills of Kennedy School.

Preachy and Unnecessarily Academic

I got 12 hours into this book and was still so far from the end, I just couldn’t stomach the thought of finishing it. It was so, so long and the amount of detail wasn’t believable at all. The narrator supposedly wasn’t there for most of this and yet he knows every little detail of what happened, down to who used the bathroom when. It took me out of the story. I also didn’t find anyone likable.

Not for me

Perhaps as a Gen Xer I am not the target audience here, but there were too many graphic descriptions of teen sex that didn’t add much to the story. Plus, the writing was so verbose, I had to roll my eyes. I stuck with it as long as I could.